Pete Sessions: “I will wrap up. Although it is my amendment, I suppose I will give my colleagues the chance to have a final word. This…”

“I will wrap up. Although it is my amendment, I suppose I will give my colleagues the chance to have a final word. This bill would not prohibit those who come here legally in the future from being entitled to the earned income tax credit even before they become a citizen. It would say, with regard to those who came here illegally and have no entitlement whatsoever to this outlay payment from the U.S. Treasury, that they should not be able to get it until they become a naturalized citizen. That is not a punishment to them. We are rewarding them with legality in our country. We are rewarding them with the health care benefits of our country and educational benefits of our country, and it is not required that we spend, I believe, what is a fair estimate of $40 billion over the next 10 years to fund this program. That money alone would be enough to fund almost the entire immigration enforcement system we need to put into place. Maybe it would fund all of the one-time costs and much of the continuing costs of that program. Why would we want to get into this argument that suggests that somehow we are discriminating against people because we don't give them a benefit to which they are clearly not entitled? We are giving them a number of benefits. We simply do not have to give this benefit. It has huge implications for our Treasury. Any way you spin it, our deficit would be $40 billion higher than if we don't adopt my amendment. I yield the floor.…”